Balster
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in German: from Balthasar or as variant of Ballester
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈbæɫstɝ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Balster is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States.
- DEGermany
- USUnited States
- NLNetherlands
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from Balthasar or as variant of Ballester
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
How Balster is read(measured from records)
Balster is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English70%
v. BALLASTER 169
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
- German15%
from Balthasar or as variant of Ballester
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Patronymischer Familienname zu Rufname Balthasar; laut Atlas teils aus dem Rufnamen, teils auch sekundär zu Siedlungsname Balster gedeutet. Varianten Balster, Balsterin.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
als ostfriesisches Patronym zu Rufname Balthasar geführt; Verbreitung eher westfälisch. Belege: 329.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Recorded in:
No national register we accept counts this name’s bearers, so the page lists where it is found and publishes no figure.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Frank S. Balsterb. 1861CAjeweler, optician, watch/clock repair and photographer who worked in Durango and La Plata, Colorado, from about 1893 to 1917 (1861-1931)
- Jutta Balsterb. 1952DEGerman volleyball player
- Dirk Balsterb. 1966DEGerman rower
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 17 sources across 9 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 656 | #36,675 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 650 | #33,169 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 603 | #37,029 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 388 | #5,185 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 83 | #72,772 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 12 | #34,562 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 3 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 3 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 3 | #247,949 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 3 | #250,167 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 3 | #64,360 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 1 | #170,925 |
Reference works 2
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Balster mean, and where does it come from?
- from Balthasar or as variant of Ballester Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How do you pronounce Balster?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈbæɫstɝ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Balster have the most bearers?
- Balster is most frequently recorded in the United States.
What do you want to know about Balster?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/balsterThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Balster”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.